Why is Control (Natural Phenomena) so expensive?

[ericthered]

a large part of the problem is that Control's area is on the square curve while all other 'strategic' abilities are exponential:

Wealth (50 points for x10 increase)
Allies (+ multiple of 6 for x10 increase)
Patron (difference between large and small nation is 5 points)
Rank ( each 5 point level puts x4-6 more people under your command)
Innate Attack Area (+50% of base for each x2)

Control (double points to quadruple area)

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I've noticed a couple of things that make control (natural phenomenon) more powerful:

Effects are instant: you can say 'let it rain' and get drops before you finish talking.

Effects must be continuous, but that's it: You can put up a wall of wind between you and enemy archers. You can tailor a battle-field to form walls, open paths, high and low visbility, and so forth

So I suppose if you use(abuse?) the crap out of those features, it might be worth it. If you can't, then you have some limitations, like delay and whatever the reverse of selective is. But if those aren't multiplicative, It still may not be worth it.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Refplace

He says it here, later on its a magnitude thing but the idea Im arguing against (one of them) is that its reasonable and to me desirable for Strategic powers to cost more.
He also posts why should Storm cost more then Cyclops or Wolverine.
My answer is she is a lot more powerful in the eyes of the world at large.

But why should that matter? Do you believe that powers should be priced on their effect on the world, regardless of how a player values it? For me, I think players are going to choose what they buy based on how useful it is to them. Storms ability to affect a thousand villagers with gentle rains is probably going to be rated below her ability to kill one super villain right now. Unless you have a game that focuses intently on large-scale elements ("I can use my Control to increase crop yields, and thus the yearly income of my province, which means I can double the number of troops my opponents can purchase yearly!"), most of the time it's largely cosmetic and situational. The fact that your earthquake blasts a city in addition to knocking the villain over is more likely to be disadvantage than an advantage if you're a hero, and mostly just a depiction of how villainous you are as a villain than really the reason your villain is so badass.

How likely is it that the large scale of control is going to solve a player's problem? Before you answer, consider a different advantage that, to me, is an example of how this should look: Epic Lifting Strength. The ability to lift 15 tons should definitely be worth more than the ability to lift 10 tons, but should it really be worth ~200 points more? I mean, it's five more tons! But the difference between 10 tons and 15 tons for most players is largely cosmetic: both characters are "super-hero" strong at that point. One can juggle three cars, the other can juggle five.

To me, control is like that. Yes, it's obviously powerful and should be worth points... but at some point, being able to apply +/- 1-3 over huge ranges is... nice, but not nearly in the "This ability alone makes me a super-hero!" I mean, the typical action character will have no problem taking down such a character, and will likely have more far-reaching consequences with his actions than just "I can give everyone in town a -1 because of inclement weather."

But arguing "Change it/don't change it" is too binary. I'd rather see solutions rather than arguments as to why it should/shouldn't be changed, either ways to make it work as written ("You're having troubles making your cool curse-the-land witch work? Here's how to make her reasonably affordable), or ways to change it so that it works.

Here's my proposed solution: Were it up to me, I'd make it 25 points per +/- 1, because it's sort of like higher purpose "but super flexible!" and those omni-powers tend to be 5x the cost of other things. Then we need to assign a cost that reflects its area. How about 100 yards as a base (less than 0.1 mile) and allow people to buy the Area Effect enhancement to increase its reach. Each doubling is +50%. One mile is +200%, so +/- over a mile is 75 points (on par with a 15 die burning innate attack), while +/-3 over the same is 225. Certainly high costs, but not costs that would beggar you.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

But why should that matter? Do you believe that powers should be priced on their effect on the world, regardless of how a player values it?

Yes I do.
Its a fundamental difference between GURPS and Champions and one of the reasons I prefer GURPS.
That is the part I said were going to have to agree to disagree on because its a philosophical difference between your desires and mine.
Nothing wrong with that but it became clear we have different perspectives.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Lia Valenth

I have always thought you build the mechanical effect you want and how it works is just special effects. While there are a lot of arguments that can be made about what Control (NP) should be able to do, all it does is give bonuses or penalties within an area.

Normally this is correct. There are edge cases such as letting your water power put out a fire or your fire power cooking dinner or lighting candles.
But that is basically using the Power Parry/Block and elemental limitations on things even if no one spent points on them.

However Control and Create are fundamentally different in that your paying for the special effect directly and side effects (Like bonus or penalties) second.
Its the opposite in design philosophy of most other powers.
I see the Bonus level as a guide to help you determine the overall power of effect.
Level 1 wont let you create a blizzard in the desert or mountain high waves in the ocean. Pay enough to get a +-10 bonus though and your talking Apocalyptic level effects.

[Flyndaran]

That's good for a fiction writer. But this is a game where value to players and game masters is the only real thing that should matter.

Value to the world is simply reputation or status.

[Icelander]

I have a lot of trouble with the fact that using Control (Whatever) it's equally expensive and difficult to give a penalty to characters in a situation where a fairly simply non-magical method would be able to cause a penalty to one or more foes already.*

Control (Wind) or anything similar ought to be much more effective at giving a blanket penalty to throwing or shooting light projectiles with a lot of drag or building houses of cards than it is at giving a bonus to melee combat rolls. And anyone standing in a small boat or an unseaworthy vessel ought to be much more suspectible to penalties for motion caused by Control (Weather, Water, Current, etc.) than someone on a cruise ship. Not to mention that using Control (Water) to give a bonus to any rolls but Swimming should probably be a lot less efficient than using it to give a penalty.

In general, using Control to shove something like air, fire or water around without any finesse should usually be able to cause fairly severe penalties to all skills affected by wind blowing, flames washing over or waves crashing. By contrast, using such Control to give bonuses to skills that theoretically could be aided by fine manipulation of such materials requires much more finesse and attention.

Given that many Powers give fairly good bonuses to skills as incidental (and free) additions, i.e. Telekinesis aiding Lockpicking, Flight aiding Acrobatics, etc., there ought to be a fairly large fudge factor involved with the +/- allowed for Control. These should be minimums, with especially apposite uses like rocking small boats or blowing down houses of cards allowing much more effect when it comes to penalties to specific skills or tasks.

I'd be inclined to allow causing penalties through moving a substance that would cause penalties if it were present non-magically to add the non-magical penalty to the one bought by Control. It's silly to have to buy nine levels of Control (Fire) to be able to give a -3 penalty, which is what you could cause with a non-magical lighter and some fuel.

Or use a similar mechanism as Visualization, where bonuses to something unpredictable and complex like combat are three times as expensive as other bonuses. Just causing a blanket penalty to everyone within the area ought to be cheap, whereas aiding specific tasks ought to be more expensive, because it calls for much better control.

*Putting out the light in a room or building somewhere can give a penalty ranging from -1 to -10, rocking a boat can cause a penalty well above -1 even when done by dropping a rock on it or turning it into the wind, lighting someone on fire can give a -3 penalty, etc.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Yes I do.
Its a fundamental difference between GURPS and Champions and one of the reasons I prefer GURPS.
That is the part I said were going to have to agree to disagree on because its a philosophical difference between your desires and mine.
Nothing wrong with that but it became clear we have different perspectives.

Then do you feel that other abilities that have "equal effect on the world" are priced more cheaply? Or does being able to shower a mile radius with 1d burning damage whenever you wish less powerful than applying a +/- 3 to an area?

And how do you quantify the point cost for "affecting the world?" What's a good benchmark that you would use to judge the cost of something?

How do you square your philosophy with the low cost of Combat Reflexes?

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That's good for a fiction writer. But this is a game where value to players and game masters is the only real thing that should matter.

Value to the world is simply reputation or status.

Agreed, though admittedly this philosophy stumbles when you realize that not everyone runs the same game. Being able to summon a castle at will is cute in a Dungeon Fantasy game, but it's astonishingly powerful in a game centered on Mass Combat. Likewise, being able to double the yearly output of crops is at best a perk in Dungeon Fantasy, but ridiculously effective in GURPS Civ.

There's certainly support in Refplace's position when you note that not every game is DF or Action or Monster Hunters (though those sorts of games are certainly the most popular).

But I also think that this hides the problem. For the average player, the cost of Control (Natural Phenomenon) is academic: "That advantage looks neat," says the DF sorceror "But I think I'll take fireball instead." I'm so passionate about it because I tried to use it. I wanted a Magic: the Gathering-inspired game where mages regularly impacted kingdoms and armies on a strategic level, summoning armies of zombies or unleashing rains of fire, or blessing/cursing the crops of the land. What I quickly found was that the blessing/cursing aspect is ridiculously expensive. I get that people think Godlike characters should have Godlike budgets, and I don't disagree, but when the average power runs you around 400 points, and someone finds a away to "be effective on a strategic scale" for 200 points, then the latter guy has a huge advantage over the former guy.

And I suspect some of the pushback I'm getting in this thread comes from this academic approach "Oh, I don't mind that it's prohibitively expensive because I don't want to deal with it in my game," but what if you do? What if you do want players to take it? How do you justify it? I don't see many ways.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Yes I do.
Its a fundamental difference between GURPS and Champions and one of the reasons I prefer GURPS.
That is the part I said were going to have to agree to disagree on because its a philosophical difference between your desires and mine.
Nothing wrong with that but it became clear we have different perspectives.

I agree.

Hero System's ability costing baseline is how useful any given ability is in combat, specifically fighting against a powerful being such as Galactus from the Marvel universe (remember, Hero System started as Champions, a super hero-specific system).

It's all about offence, defence and movement. World impact is ignored blithely.

That's not a system I want to play. At all. It follows logically, since I do worlds and such systems are anti-world on the fundamental level. Implicit design criteria.

[Lia Valenth]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Normally this is correct. There are edge cases such as letting your water power put out a fire or your fire power cooking dinner or lighting candles.
But that is basically using the Power Parry/Block and elemental limitations on things even if no one spent points on them.

However Control and Create are fundamentally different in that your paying for the special effect directly and side effects (Like bonus or penalties) second.
Its the opposite in design philosophy of most other powers.
I see the Bonus level as a guide to help you determine the overall power of effect.
Level 1 wont let you create a blizzard in the desert or mountain high waves in the ocean. Pay enough to get a +-10 bonus though and your talking Apocalyptic level effects.

Is this why control is so unusable in GURPS? Because it was priced around the special effects/fluff instead of the in-game effect?

Yes, controlling the weather is a powerful ability, and with a GM that uses it in the way some might it could be worth it. However, the fact is that the ability only gives +/- to rolls in certain conditions. Being able to control (NP) 3 might be reason to allow them to double crop growth in an area if the GM allows it, but in reality it just gives farmers a +/- 1 to their farming checks for the year. I seriously doubt that doubles their output.

Pricing an ability based on what the GM might or might not allow does not work IMO. That is why other abilities are priced around their effect not around their fluff. IF this was priced due to its fluff, it needs a repricing.